They've been pretty tight-lipped about what exactly is happening with this unit. They've said in the empeg forums that they are working on new projects: maybe this is one of them. The fact that they are still working on the rio car software seems to imply that they expect other products to use it, and the Rio Advanced Digital Audio Center seems to need something like the Rio Receiver.

Either Sonic Blue is making a lot of money on selling so many of these things or they are losing a lot of money on clearance. It could be either way. It would be interesting to know how much the development / per unit cost is. If they'd just advertise, they could sell a heck of a lot of them at these prices, since this seems to be in a sweet spot for the market.

If they are coming out with a new unit, I wonder if it will have more functionality, cheaper cost (to the manufacturer), or both. I saw a -probably uneducated- guess at the cost per unit of these at $80. If that's true, these are some slim margins. I suspects that estimate is off by quite a bit though.

P.S. Tigerdirect charges something like $10-12 for shipping.

-Biscuits